Rethinking Islam with Sultan Shahin

Islam and the West

23 Dec 2010, NewAgeIslam.Com

How Arabs stem the flow of `leaks’: Cyber attacks, hacking do the trick

WIKILEAKS may be breaking new ground to promote freedom of information by releasing leaked US diplomatic cables, but Arab governments have been resorting to old tricks to ensure nothing too damaging reaches their subjects. Tunisia, Saudi Arabia and Morocco have all tried to stem the flow of Wiki-revelations, whether the subject is corruption, authoritarianism or simply the embarrassment of having private exchanges with American interlocutors enter the public domain. There is certainly an appetite for reading state secrets. -- Ian Black

How Arabs stem the flow of `leaks’: Cyber attacks, hacking do the trick

By Ian Black WIKILEAKS may be breaking new ground to promote freedom of information by releasing leaked US diplomatic cables, but Arab governments have been resorting to old tricks to ensure nothing too damaging reaches their subjects. Tunisia, Saudi Arabia and Morocco have all tried to stem the flow of Wiki-revelations, whether the subject is corruption, authoritarianism or simply the embarrassment of having private exchanges with American interlocutors enter the public domain. There is certainly an appetite for reading state secrets. Guardian Stories about the business interests of the king of Morocco and the nepotism of the unpopular president of Tunisia generated heavy traffic on the website. Le Monde But, whose Francophone audience cares far more about the Maghreb, found its print edition banned from Morocco. El Pais Al-Quds Al-Arabi Spain`s, another of the five media partners in the WikiLeaks enterprise, was banned too. So was, the independent London-based pan-Arab daily which has been following up on the stories from the start. Elaph, a Saudi-run website, was mysteriously hacked when it ran a piece about King Abdullah`s sensational calls on the US to attack Iran to destroy its nuclear programme. Al-Akhbar Lebanon`s , a leftist and pro-Hezbollah paper, pulled off quite a trick: it somehow obtained unauthorised leaks from the WikiLeaks cache, posting 250 US cables from eight Arab countries on its website — only to find that it was cyber-attacked (and replaced by a shimmering pink Saudi girl chat room) when it published one of two devastatingly frank documents about President Ben Ali of Tunisia, who reinforced his country`s reputation as the most Internet-unfriendly in the region. “This is a professional job,” said publisher Hassan Khalil, “not the work of some geek sitting in his bedroom.” In Arab countries where the media is state-controlled and even privately owned outlets exercise self-censorship to stay within well-defined red lines, outright censorship is usually a last resort. Al-Masry Al-Youm Al-Akhbar So in Egypt, for example, there was little coverage of WikiLeaked material about the presidential succession, the role of the army and Hosni Mubarak`s hostility to Hamas — all highly sensitive issues, though the independent did run some cables that were passed on by in Beirut. In Syria, where newspapers are state-controlled, and the only privately owned paper is owned by a wealthy and powerful regime crony, one official insisted there was nothing discomfiting in WikiLeaks because “what we say behind closed doors is exactly the same as what we advocate publicly”. That`s true enough when it comes to fierce hostility to any criticism of Syria`s domestic affairs and its support for the “resistance” in Lebanon and Palestine. Pro-western Jordan escaped serious embarrassment but Yemen`s government faced awkward questions in parliament about its private admission of lying about US air strikes against Al Qaeda — as well as concern that President Ali Abdullah Saleh`s fondness for whisky would give ammunition to his Islamist critics. No one knew quite what to make of a document showing he had asked the Saudi air force to target the HQ of a senior Yemeni army commander. Overall, Arab reactions to the WikiLeaks flood have been a mixture of the dismissive and the fascinated. Some wondered why there are so few damaging revelations about Israel — giving rise to at least one conspiracy theory about collusion between Julian Assange and Benjamin Netanyahu. Others were disgusted if not really surprised at evidence of double-talk by the leaders who are quoted in the cables. In many cases it is striking to see the contrast between well-informed, warts-and-all American assessments of the Arab autocracies and the limited efforts made by the US to promote democracy and human rights. Standing back to survey the big picture as the WikiLeaks effect fades in the Middle East, there are two other striking conclusions: one is the enormous scale of the US effort to contain Iran and its friends. The other — related — one is the sheer intimacy of US links to Israel. The much-remarked dearth of documents about the Palestinian issue reflects still relatively low US priorities, a lack of contact with Hamas-ruled Gaza and ties with Israel that are conducted through secure defence and intelligence channels or directly with the White House. — The Guardian, London Source: Dawn, Pakistan URL: http://www.newageislam.com/NewAgeIslamIslamAndWest_1.aspx?ArticleID=3822